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CCP Explains Why DUST 514 Wouldn't Have Worked On Xbox 360

The upcoming MMOFPS DUST 514 is exclusive to the PlayStation 3. But why?

CCP Games chief marketing officer David Reid addressed that question in a recent Digital Spy interview; it seems the "technical implications" concerning its connectivity with the existing EVE Online could only be satisfied by Sony's platform. Said Reid:

"Think about the impact of virtual goods policies. People at CCP and Sony have sat in rooms to work this out. It's not been this 'Here's this virtual goods policy. You must adhere to it or else you can't be on our platform.'

Sony has been a terrific partner in enabling us to have that discussion with them, and trying to be innovative and flexible and finding ways that it can work for CCP, it can work for Dust players, and it can work for the Sony ecosystem. Not easy to do, especially when you're talking about division in America, Europe and Japan.

It takes a partner who is willing to go the extra mile, and Sony has been terrific on that front."

One specific example Reid used was the cross-game chat between DUST 514 and EVE Online; he said it just wouldn't have been possible on the Xbox platform. He said it was important that people be able to converse and not just "text each other," and they had the difficult issue of "enabling thousands of EVE players to chat with millions of PlayStation users." They worked closely with Sony to find a solution and Reid says it's not something they would've discovered on Microsoft's console.

So if you're a 360 owner and you're wondering why you're not getting DUST 514, well, this is part of the reason.

A few devs have admitted that Sony's platform is a lot more open/flexible for them to work on. I still find it surreal that Gabe Newell is among them. I'm just glad that Sony is being a terrific partner to these developers (their words) as it's a win-win situation for them, for the devs, and most importantly, us gamers.

Yes, it does seem that frequently we come back to the open nature of the Network environment from Sony. That has been a key thing in the competition with MS. MS retains absolute control over everything in/on XBL. That's too restrictive, but fairly typical of MS approach to business. They have always favored lock-ins.

I hope Sony can find a way to expand upon their openness without sacrificing their new found respect for security in the future.

It's mindboggling to think how much information is going to be exchanged between Dust and EVE. I think it's a great experiment for Sony to partake in, but I'm worried that like MAG it might go over people's heads. Gonna be up to the PS3 user base really.

Being an EVE player myself, I'm looking forward to heading off to a space station and betting on the land battles that will be taking place. Which is a feature that has been announced already. So we'll be up in space, fine dining while we watch the slaughters that are going on down below :)

@BeamboomNot sure about that one. But seeing as there are news stories in game on tv monitors and whatnot, I'm assuming that battle results will be broadcast that way as well. Hopefully they'll have live feeds on the monitors too for us to watch.

@berserkNot sure about that one either lol. Though it is known that the console gamers will be under the command of the PC players as the ground troops are all mercenaries being hired by the PC players. Exactly how much command will the PC gamers have over the battles is unknown as far as I know thus far. I want to know if all the mercenary hiring is corporation only, or will individual players be able to hire their own squads in the attempt to steal some territory from other corps? If it's available for everyone, then I already have my eyes set on a few territories I wouldn't mind trying to covertly take over from some unsuspecting people :)Last edited by Geobaldi on 4/2/2012 8:10:17 AM

thats exactly why you dont see many MMOs on the 360.exactly why FFXIV was not on the 360.M$ need to have control over the servers, over the services, they run the game otherwise they wont let you on the platform.which isent such a bad idea, at least that way when something f*cks up you know who to blame.not like how $ony does things, then always says oh nah we had nothing to do with that.

why do people basically say Dust wouldnt work on Xbox because the XBox is closed and basically the crossplatform play wouldnt work because of it.. yet 360 had final fantasy 11 on it which was crossplatform between ps2, and pc just fine? if xbox was so "closed" then FFXI shouldnt have worked on that system either yet SE obviously got around to them

Yeah they did at *that* time. Now MS is not interested anymore is all there is to it. It is true that MS is very *bitchy* about it's online communism and only their dictatorship can prevail. SE must have *bent* really low to get FF on it last time and now they won't do it again.